HIGH COUNTRY: Pitkin County sheriff candidate front-runner Joe DiSalvo came out in favor of legalizing illicit drugs during a debate Thursday, saying he has no interest in whether people, in the privacy of their homes, “fire up a joint or do a line on [their] table,” the Aspen Daily News reports.

MAYBE IT’S THE PENCIL LEAD: The Larimer County clerk’s office discovered that a ballot weighed at one post office required 61 cents postage, while the same ballot weighed at another needed a 44-cent stamp, The Coloradoan reports. Ballots will be delivered even with insufficient postage, but Al DeSarro, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service in Denver, said the correct price is 61 cents and urged all voters to put that amount of postage on the ballot before mailing.

THE READING WAS DONE ON PERSONAL TIME: In the wake of his comments that evidence supports the view that global warming is a hoax, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck tells The Coloradoan: “As Weld County DA, I haven’t done a whole lot of research on this area, and I will.” Later in the same article, Bob Moore unearths the following quote, from a radio interview Buck gave in 2009: “I’ve read a lot of literature on that issue. I also have read and talked to experts that say climate change is not man made.”

PLEDGE-TO-ELIMINATE-IT DRIVE: Colorado Springs Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn’s legislation to cut funding for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting after fiscal year 2012 gets some national notoriety today in the wake of the Juan Williams firing, as The Associated Press reports.

JUST REMEMBER TO MAIL IT: Facebook friends can sneak a peak at how you’re voting in November’s mid-term election through a voyeuristic voters guide called “MyBallot” developed by New Era Colorado, a civic engagement group with a youthful edge, reports The Camera.

THE COLORADO MODEL: A coordinated assortment of outside progressive groups have poured more than $6 million into winning key legislative seats across the state, swamping the spending on races that typically cost candidates a fraction of the sums being spent on their behalf, The Colorado Statesman reports.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.